Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Metre: fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilātün fe‘ilün

‘Āşıḳa ḫūşe-i zülfüñ iñen olmaz mā’il
Mezra‘-ı ṭūl-i emelden ne olısar ḥāṣıl
Dür dişüñ fikriyile şol ḳadar aġladum kim
Baḥra döndi gözümüñ yaşı görünmez sāḥil
Serv ile ḳadd-i ḫırāmānı bir olduġı gibi
Görinür mūy-ı miyāniyle ṣaçı ḳıl-be-ḳıl
Ehl-i dil ‘āşıḳ-ı hüşyār aña dirler kim
Cām-ı ‘ışḳuñla senüñ mest ola vü lā-ya‘ḳıl
Cānına ẓulm ü sitem eyleyüben sevdi seni
‘Adli'yiçün dimesünler daḫı şāh-ı ‘ādil

In English

1. The ear of grain that is your lock of hair hardly ever bends towards the lover; what harvest will come from the field of long hope? (The lock is likened to an ear of grain in a field: since it does not bend, the field the lover has sown with long hopes yields nothing.)

2. Thinking of your pearl-like teeth I wept so much that the tears of my eyes turned into a sea whose shore cannot be seen.

3. Just as the cypress and his swaying stature are one, so his hair-thin waist appears identical to his hair, strand for strand.

4. The people of the heart call him a "sober lover" only who is drunk and out of his senses from the cup of your love.

5. (Adlî) loved you while doing wrong and injury to his own soul; from now on let them no longer call Adlî "the just king".

Literary and Historical Commentary

Structure of the Poem

The ghazal (gazel) has five couplets and is written in the remel metre "fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilâtün fe‘ilün". It has no redif (refrain word); the rhyme is the sound "-il / -ıl": mâil, hâsıl, sâhil, kıl-be-kıl, lâ-ya‘kıl, âdil. The ghazal is a verse form whose couplets (beyit) are bound by the same metre and rhyme, whose opening couplet (matla) rhymes within itself, and whose final couplet (makta) carries the poet's pen name (mahlas). In Bayram's edition it is number 71 and it is found in all five manuscripts (OR, T, M1, M2, İBB). The variants are limited to a few words: OR and İBB read "tûşe" instead of "hûşe" (ear of grain), M1, M2 and İBB read "eger" instead of "iñen"; in M1 and M2 the second couplet begins with "derd-i şek" instead of "dür dişüñ"; four manuscripts have "bahr oldı" instead of "bahra döndi". It is not known to whom or when it was written.

Meaning and Figures of Speech

The opening couplet is built on the image of a field. In their dictionary sense "hûşe" means an ear of grain or a cluster, "mezra‘" a sown field, and "hâsıl" both a crop and a result. The beloved's lock is likened to an ear of grain and the lover's long hopes to a field; as a ripe ear bends, the beloved's hair ought to bend towards the lover, to be "mâil", but it does not. Ear, field and harvest form a congruence of images (tenasüp); the word "hâsıl" brings to mind both the crop lifted from the field and the outcome of one's labour. The word "iñen" in the line means "very, much" in Old Anatolian Turkish, and "olısar" is the old form of today's "olacak" (will be). Bayram records both features separately in his 2008 article on the spelling of the divan's British Library manuscript.

The second couplet uses the bond between pearl and sea. The beloved's teeth are likened to pearls; the lover weeps thinking of those pearls, and his tears become a shoreless sea. Since pearls come from the sea, the comparison is consistent in itself, and the hyperbole follows naturally from that consistency. In the third couplet the familiar likeness between the beloved's stature and the cypress is set down as a measure, and the same likeness is then drawn between waist and hair. "Mûy-ı miyân" means a waist as thin as a hair; the waist is so slender that it is identical, "strand for strand", with a lock of hair. There is also a congruence of images (tenasüp) between "mûy" (hair) and the word "kıl" (strand, hair).

The fourth couplet is built on an antithesis. "Hüşyâr" means sober, awake; "mest" means drunk, and "lâ-ya‘kıl", in its dictionary sense, "one who cannot use his reason", one who is beside himself. According to the people of the heart, true sobriety is to lose oneself through the beloved's cup of love. This is a brief expression of the outlook in divan poetry that places the intoxication of love above the sobriety of reason.

The final couplet is a play on the pen name. "Adlî" means "relating to justice"; "şâh-ı âdil" means a just ruler. The lover has loved his beloved while doing wrong to his own soul, so he should no longer be called "the just king". As Bayram quotes in his introduction, Latîfî writes that Bayezid took the pen name "Adlî" because he was like Khosrow at the gate of "justice and equity"; Bayram also notes that he was one of the sultans who, as his pen name indicates, attached great importance to justice. The irony is really present in the couplet: a ruler remembered for his justice withdraws from himself the title of "just king" because on the path of love he has wronged his own soul.

Bibliography

  • Yavuz Bayram (ed.), Adlî Dîvânı (Dîvân-ı Sultân Bâyezîd-i Sânî), Ankara: Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı Yay., 2018, p. 109, poem no. 71 (manuscript information in the footnote on p. 109; Latîfî's explanation of the pen name p. 11 n. 46; emphasis on justice p. 23). ekitap.ktb.gov.tr
  • Yavuz Bayram, "Sultan İkinci Bâyezîd-i Velî (Adlî) Dîvânı'nın British Library Nüshasında İmlâ Husûsiyetleri", Turkish Studies 3/6 (Fall 2008), pp. 109-142 (the future suffix -ısar p. 120; the meaning of the word "iñen" p. 129).

Online sources